Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Question Suggestions

The winners of our vote on where to poll this week were Nevada and West Virginia. As always we appreciate your question suggestions.

There are three things in particular I'd like some feedback on:

-In Nevada should we test anyone besides Shelley Berkley and Byron Georgiou on the Democratic side and Dean Heller on the Republican side for Senate?

-We obviously can't test every possible permutation for the general election for Governor in West Virginia. We're definitely going to do Earl Ray Tomblin, Natalie Tennant, and John Perdue on the Democratic side vs. Betty Ireland on the Republican side. Anyone else we need to throw in that general election mix?

-We'll definitely test Shelley Moore Capito against Joe Manchin for Senate- any other Republicans we should look at?

Thoughts on those questions as well as any question ideas you might have much appreciated as always.

woud you be able to do any polling on Sharon Angle and the congressional district she is running for? I know that the new district lines are not set yet, but you could test her in Heller's current district to see how she might fare

For West Virginia if you can you should test Bill Maloney, who out raised Ireland. He's probably a longshot to make it to the general election but it appears he may have a little bit of a chance. If you could do a primary for the GOP to see if an upset looks possible that would be great.

How about a poll of the popularity of the Ryan budget in both states? That's going to be a big campaign issue in 2012. Rep David McKinley in WV was one of only four GOP reps to oppose it so maybe his polling shows that it is highly unpopular there. You could ask people specifically how they feel about the budget and more generically how they feel about the bill's proposals such as replacing medicare with a voucher system.

I recent poll by CNN just came out yesterday showing 51% of Americans support the legalization same-sex marriage, the 4th major poll recently to show majority support.

I would really love to see the statewide level of support in these two states (NV and WV), where I've never really seen specific poll numbers regarding same-sex marriage. I think it would be really interesting to see the % who support same-sex marriage vs. the % who oppose it, without the option of civil unions.

It would be interesting to compare the two states to recent nationwide numbers.

Definitely Betty Ireland/Bill Maloney/Clark Barnes. They are probably the top three on the WVGOP side. I'd like to see you do all the candidates, but I understand why you can't. Thanks for doing the poll research.

WV- You have to test Bill Maloney for Gov. He has outraised Ireland and is really her main primary opponent now. Also test him for Senate. If he loses the primary, I wouldn't be surprised to see him run for Senate.

Ask voters how Manchin's HCR repeal vote affected their opinions of him

Betty Ireland in the gubernatorial race. And try Robin Davis as an alterntative Democrat. She says she's running for some office next year (against David McKinley?. Test Brian Krolicki as a republican alternative and Cortez Masto(who the DSCC attempted to, but failed to recruit) as the democratic alternative.

You've got to be testing the Ryan-GOP "end Medicare as we know it" bill on every house and Senate race such as NV where Heller is not backing away from his vote for it. It would be good to eventually see how this race would compare to MT where Rehberg didn't vote for it.

Hey, could you ask the democrats (well, and republicans/independents if you want as well) if they think Trig is really Sarah Palin's son? I have seen that old conspiracy (that he is the son of her daughter or something) pop up again. Would be interesting to see if democrats are as likely to believe anything negative about Palin as Republicans are likely to believe anything negative about Obama (I think birtherism is really just an expression of great disappointment in the president). Seeing as Palin is as unpopular among Democrats as Obama is among Republicans , I'm thinking the number of "trig truthers" is likely to be shockingly high.

Cause West Virginia is a small state, poll the approvals of McKinley and Rahall. Both of WV Senators are over 62 and they could be the next Senators. You don't have to do individual CD's in this question.

Poll the approvals of unions and gay marriage is this heavy union anti-gary marriage state.

Poll the favorability of different kinds of music in West Virginia: Bluegrass (fiddling), ballad singing and other Scottish music.

This would be a good state to ask about social issues, like the race one in MS.

Ask about gas prices. There's been speculation of late that increasing gas prices could be a large factor behind the President's declining approval rating and the public's increasing dissatisfaction with the state of the economy. Asking who the public holds responsible for high gas prices could be illuminating.

In the future could you poll two-way support/oppose gay marriage in every state? To see whether national polls showing that position taking the majority are correct (including civil unions is interesting, but we don't know how many of those people would break either way if the question was yes/no for marriage.)

In West Virginia, more interesting than the potential general election matchups, is the primary elections themselves. The primary is only a few weeks away and there is no reason to leave any candidate out of a primary question on either side of the ticket.

The gas prices question is a great concept in my opinion. I also like the ideas of polling online gambling support in Nevada, and seeing how Nevada voters would feel about Sandoval appointing a senator for the vacancy. And definitely ask about the budget plan. Ask them which they prefer.